Physician financial incentives and care for the underserved in the United States

Objectives: To estimate: (1) the percentage of physicians whose compensation is variable; (2) the frequency at which performance incentives for productivity, care quality, patient satisfaction, and resource use were used to determine compensation; and (3) how much incentives differ for physicians who serve greater percentages of patients who are Medicaid-insured, racial/ethnic minorities, or who face language barriers, versus those who do not. Study Design: Cross-sectional study of 3234 nationally representative physicians responding to the 2008 Center for Studying Health System Change's Health Tracking Physician Survey (HTPS). Methods: We examined the degree to which practices' percentage of Medicaid revenues and physicians' panel characteristics were associated with physicians' financial incentives using x² statistics and multivariate logistic regression (adjusting for physician specialty, practice type, and capitation levels, and area-based factors). Results: Compensation was variable for 69% of respondents, was most frequently tied to productivity (68%), and less often to care quality (19%), patient satisfaction (21%), or resource use (14%). Physicians were significantly less likely to report variable compensation if the percentage Medicaid revenues was 50% or more (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 0.73, 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.57-0.95) or if physician panels were at least 50% Hispanic (adjusted OR 0.74, 95% CI, 0.56-0.99). However, physicians were significantly more likely to report use of all 4 performance incentives if percentage of Medicaid revenues was 6% to 24%. Conclusions: Physicians report different types of financial incentives designed to alter care quality and quantity; incentive types differ by the degree that practices derive revenues from Medicaid or serve Hispanic patients. Further investigation is needed to understand how to align financial incentives with disparity-reduction efforts.